


Giving Your Heart

by Anna_Wing



Series: Vignettes of the Blessed Realm [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Wing/pseuds/Anna_Wing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-script to the Lay of Leithian</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Your Heart

_In which two people who love each other are reunited_

They are the most impressive doors in the world. Angband and Utumno and Mordor don't count. Melkor and Mairon had no taste and tried _far_ too hard, and anyway the gates of Angband didn't stop Luthien from walking in, pocketing a Silmaril and walking out again, any more than the Morannon stopped Master Frodo and Master Samwise. The Lord and Lady of _this_ Hall have nothing to prove and no need, in any sense of the word, to fear attack. No-one gets in through these doors against the will of their owners. No-one gets out.

Aulë made the doors for Them, in the Day before the days, when Valinor was young (He helped to make some of what lies behind as well, but not everything; not remotely everything). The casual visitor to this place, if such a mythical creature should ever come into being, wouldn't see anything at first. The road would simply end in an unsatisfactory way at a sheer wall of black rock in the Last Mountains on the Western edge of Aman (and beyond _them_ is only the Encircling Ocean, Ulmo's moat around the world). After a while, and some puzzled scrutiny, the visitor would realise that what they thought was a cliff-face was not natural. Was in fact a pair of doors, smooth as mirrors, dark as a hound's maw, and considerably higher than any reasonable person, embodied or not, would think it necessary for doors to be. The tallest sauropod ever to stride long-necked in the glory of the Spring of Arda would feel a little insignificant, passing through those doors.

On a fine morning in Spring, a couple of Ages after the Rising of the Moon and Sun, a visitor came to the doors. He did not knock, or call or push (futilely) at the rock. He walked around the flat patch of grass where the road ended, investigated the bushes along its verge, and finally sat down with an air of resigned patience. The surrounding countryside is not a barren wasteland. It is in fact a rather attractive region of foothills, many small streams and waterfalls and flowery woodland of great oaks and deodars. Blue poppies spread a second sky in spring, and rhododendrons make great brakes of white and pink and crimson throughout the summer. The visitor left his station from time to time to hunt (marmots, hares and squirrels mostly, and the odd mountain antelope) and drink, but he always returned to his post before the doors. When he slept, it was curled on the spot. This went on for some time.

Eventually, a small postern in the left-hand door (that had definitely not been there previously) opened, and a very tall lady in grey came out.

"You could just have shouted, you know," the Lady Nienna said. The visitor greeted her respectfully but did not otherwise reply. She sighed. "I suppose you'd better come in."

The Halls of the Dead (for that is indeed where they were) are of ambiguous nature, by which is meant that what the Embodied - whether permanently or temporarily- visitor perceives is not what its Disembodied inhabitants perceive, and is not in either case necessarily what is actually there. 

The Lady Nienna, out of good manners, shared Her perception with the visitor in a manner that he could best appreciate, and so he followed Her down peaceful, shadowy corridors swirling with a thousand thousand scents: the wild and starry deeps of the Valar and Their servants, the light, swift, many-layered traces of the Eldar, and underneath everything the warm, reassuring solidity of the Lord Aulë’s rock, anchoring the Halls to the world of the living.

After a while, they passed from corridors to rooms small and large, and then into a great hall, lamp-lit,with a roof that soared away into shadows and three tall thrones at its far end. The Valar-scent became strong, and then stronger, and then overwhelming, and he knew that he was in the presence of the Lord and Lady of the Halls. He greeted Them, with the same respect that he had greeted the Lord’s sister.

“Greetings,” said Lord Námo, and “Greetings,” said Lady Vairë, rising from Their thrones of white topaz. Lady Nienna joined them; her throne was of grey jade.

“It’s lovely to see you again,” Lady Vairë said. “Do sit and have something to drink. What brings you here?”

The visitor sat down on the cushion that appeared courteously behind him. Sweet water was brought in deep bowls and he drank. Then, like Luthién the brave, whom he had loved, and followed, and lost forever, he began to sing for Them the threnody of his grief and his desire. His voice rose, deep and strong and unutterably sorrowful, ringing through the wide halls and far depths, its mournful notes shaping for his listeners the tale of his loss. It was a long one, of joy and love and bloodshed and treachery and glory, deeply tangled with the stories of the Elves with whom his heart had been entwined. The Silmaril shone in his song, and Elves, who loved and betrayed and died, and werewolves, and one bravest Man. He sang his loneliness and his despair and his abandonment, and those about him wept, except for the Lord of the Halls, who had already wept for this story once before and did not feel the need to do so again.

The song ended. The visitor bowed down before the thrones and waited.

The Lady Nienna looked at Her brother in an expectant manner. He looked back, impassive.

“I did say the last time that I wasn’t going to treat it as a precedent,” He said.

Lady Nienna was unmoved. “This is quite different,” She said. “He’s not asking for early release or a remission of sentence, just the chance to visit regularly. I think that it would be therapeutically very helpful.”

The Lady Vairë said dispassionately, “The relevant precedent is in fact Melkor’s case. We obviously cannot justify a preliminary sentence longer than _his_ , for any of them, and it would indeed be helpful if as many as possible could be healed enough to leave of their own will by the end of that period. I have been concerned for some time about the lack of progress with this case. While all in Our care are of equal importance, this one will unfortunately be conspicuous among the Eldar.”

They looked at the visitor. He raised his head, every line of his body expressing intense, silent appeal. There was a very long silence.

“Oh, go on then,” said Lord Námo. 

The visitor rose to his feet, bowed his head to the Three, and fled without more. Down the halls he ran, swifter than ever he had pursued wolf or orc in Beleriand so long ago. He did not need a guide now. He had the scent, his heart’s first love, still beloved and longed-for, through all the betrayal and sorrow of the long years.

He found what he sought deep within the Halls, in a long, bright gallery that overlooked a silent waterfall. Celegorm son of Fëanor turned at the sound of claws on stone, and gasped, and fell to his knees as a yipping tsunami of fur and wildly wagging tail engulfed him.

“Huan. Oh, _Huan_.”


End file.
